'Aqir
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Aqir, also spelt Akir and Akkur, was a Palestinian Arab village in the Ramle Subdistrict, located 9 km southwest of
Ramla Ramla (), also known as Ramle (, ), is a city in the Central District of Israel. Ramle is one of Israel's mixed cities, with significant numbers of both Jews and Arabs. The city was founded in the early 8th century CE by the Umayyad caliph S ...
and 1 km north of Wadi al-NasufiyyaKhalidi, 1990, p. 359 (today called Nahal Ekron). It was depopulated and demolished and replaced by
Kiryat Ekron Kiryat Ekron or Qiryath Eqron () is a town located on the coastal plain in the Central District of Israel. Located immediately south of the city of Rehovot on Highway 411 next to the Bilu Junction, in it had a population of . History Kiryat Ekr ...
.


History

Until the early 20th century, Aqir was thought to lie at the site of the ancient Philistine city of
Ekron Ekron (Philistine: 𐤏𐤒𐤓𐤍 ''*ʿAqārān'', , ), in the Hellenistic period known as Accaron () was at first a Canaanite, and later more famously a Philistine city, one of the five cities of the Philistine Pentapolis, located in pr ...
, that has now been identified as Tel Mikne, 9 km to the south. The error seems rooted in antiquity; The Romans referred to the village as ''Accaron''. Archeological excavations indicate that a pottery workshop operated there during the
Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...
era, and a glass workshop was there during the
Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
era. Buildings from the
Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...
era have also been excavated.Marmelstein, 2016,
‘Aqir
/ref> In the 10th century, Al-Muqaddasi writes of Aqir (Ekron) as "A large village with a mosque. Its inhabitants are much given to good works. The bread here is not to be surpassed for quality. The village lies on the high road from Ar-Ramlah to Makka." Yakut called it Al Akir, and said it belonged to Ar Ramlah. The village mosque had a construction text, made in naskhi script, and dating it to 1296–7.Sharon, 1997, pp
107
109


Ottoman era

In 1596, Aqir (Amir) appeared in Ottoman tax registers as being in the ''
Nahiya A nāḥiyah ( , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiyeh, nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level divisi ...
'' of Ramla of the '' Liwa'' of Gaza. It had a population of 31 Muslim households and paid taxes on wheat, barley, and other produce. The
mihrab ''Mihrab'' (, ', pl. ') is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the ''qibla'', the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca towards which Muslims should face when praying. The wall in which a ''mihrab'' appears is thus the "''qibla'' wall". ...
in the mosque had an inscription above it dating it to 1701-1702 CE. The scholar Edward Robinson passed by the village in 1838, and described it as being surrounded by "well-tilled gardens and fields of the richest soil". The village itself was described as being of "considerable size", built of bricks or
adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...
. It was further noted that it was a Muslim village, located in the Ramleh region.Robinson and Smith, 1841, vol 3, Appendix 2, p.
120
/ref> In the 19th century, Aqir received
Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
migrants. In 1857 William McClure Thomson described the village as a "forlorn cluster of low earth-roofed hovels" and "though the village itself is squalid and the people rude, the wide valley below it is extremely fertile" In 1863
Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (; 15 September 1821 – 21 September 1890) was a French people, French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included ...
noted Aqir as a large village, with 800 inhabitants. An Ottoman village list from about 1870 counted 155 houses and a population of 512, though the population count included men only. In the mid 1870s Claude Reignier Conder described Aqir (naming it "Ekron") as "a mud hamlet, with gardens fenced with prickly pears" In 1882, the PEF's ''
Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the completed Survey of Western Palestine (SWP) and in 1880 for the soon abandoned Survey of Eastern Palestine. The ...
'' described it as "an
adobe Adobe (from arabic: الطوب Attub ; ) is a building material made from earth and organic materials. is Spanish for mudbrick. In some English-speaking regions of Spanish heritage, such as the Southwestern United States, the term is use ...
village on low rising ground, with cactus hedges surrounding its gardens, and a
well A well is an excavation or structure created on the earth by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. The ...
to the north."Conder and Kitchener, 1882, SWP II, p
408
Quoted in Khalidi, 1992, p. 521
Excavations revealed traces of Late Ottoman
infant In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...
jar-burials, commonly associated with
nomads Nomads are communities without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from areas. Such groups include hunter-gatherers, Nomadic pastoralism, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), tinkers and Merchant, trader nomads. In the twentieth century, ...
or itinerant workers of
Egyptian ''Egyptian'' describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of year ...
origins.Taxel, Y., Marom, R., & Nagar, Y. (2025)
An Infant Jar Burial from Zarnūqa: Muslim Funerary Practices and Migrant Communities in Late Ottoman Palestine
'''Atiqot'', 117, 269–293.


British Mandate era

At the time of the
1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divis ...
, Aqir had a population of 1155 inhabitants, all Muslims. This had increased to 1689 Muslims and 2 Christians by the 1931 census.Mills, 1932, p
19
/ref> Between 1941 and 1948, the RAF Aqir airfield was located nearby. In 1945, the village had a population of 2,480 Muslims with two elementary schools: one for boys, founded in 1921 which had an enrollment of 391 boys in 1945 and a second for girls, which had an enrollment of 46 girls in 1945. There were two
mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...
s in the village. In the 1945 statistics, the village had 1,300 dunums of land used for citrus and banana cultivation, 8,968 dunums were used for cereals, 914 dunums irrigated or used for orchards, while 46 dunams were classified as built-up public areas.


1948 and afterward

The village was depopulated during the 1947–48 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine on 6 May 1948 during
Operation Barak Operation Barak (, ''Mivtza Barak'', lit. ''Operation Lightning'') was a Haganah offensive launched just before the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. It was part of Plan Dalet. Its objective was to capture villages North of Gaza in anti ...
by the
Givati Brigade The 84th "Givati" Brigade () is an Israel Defense Forces infantry brigade formed in 1947. During the 1948 war, it was involved in capturing Palestinian villages in operations ''Hametz'', ''Barak'', and ''Pleshet''. Before Israel's 2005 ...
. The remaining village houses were taken over by
Kiryat Ekron Kiryat Ekron or Qiryath Eqron () is a town located on the coastal plain in the Central District of Israel. Located immediately south of the city of Rehovot on Highway 411 next to the Bilu Junction, in it had a population of . History Kiryat Ekr ...
soon after. According to the Palestinian historian
Walid Khalidi Walid Khalidi (; born in Jerusalem on July 16, 1925) is a Palestinian historian who has written extensively on the Palestinian exodus. He is a co-founder of the Institute for Palestine Studies, established in Beirut in December 1963 as an inde ...
, the village's remaining structures on the village land were, in 1992:
''A number of small houses remain, several of which are occupied by Jewish families. One is a cement house with a gabled roof and rectangular doors and windows, another is similar in its features, but its roof is flat. Cypresses, cycamores and cactuses grow on the site. The surrounding lands are cultivated by Israelis.''


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * *Al-Muqaddasi, 1884
Description of Syria, including Palestine
translated by Le Strange * * * * *


External links


Aqir
Zochrot *Survey of Western Palestine, Map 16
IAA
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'Aqir
from the Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center {{Palestinian Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Palestine War Arab villages depopulated during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War District of Ramla